[...] Many reports indicate that gangs are targeting the NSC parking lot, marking tires or placing stickers on license plates so they can later be identified by thieves. At a shoot last June, we and a commissioned officer investigated reports of marked vehicles and found no validity. There was no pattern or consistency among the marks that were identified to us, and we found that all the questionable marks reported to us were left there by manufacturers, tire services, or rental car companies. In fact, most marks were so worn or well covered that they could not have occurred in the parking lot. [...]

CORPUS CHRISTI -- Several variations of an email alert urging gun owners to be aware of a clever burglary ploy by street gangs has sent folks crawling around their vehicles searching for discreet tags put there by gang members.

One gentleman told me he tried in vain to scrape off the red or yellow dot on one of his tires and now plans to paint over it.

Chances are the absent dot will confuse the next tire technician he encounters. Turns out the colored dots are put there by tire manufacturers mainly to help installers with balancing. [...]

OKLAHOMA CITY -- [...] Sen. Ralph Shortey, R-Oklahoma City, filed abortion-related legislation [Senate Bill 1418] regarding the disposal of aborted human fetuses. It reads: "No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients." [...]

Monday, January 23, 2012

Swedish police have confirmed that rumours of a man driving around in a white van seeking to snatch kids from schools in the Stockholm areas is nothing more than an 'urban myth'.

"We have heard about a white transit van for some ten years, but this has much to do with the fact that this is the most common type of van. I am convinced that there is no particular person in a particular white van looking for children," detective inspector Ludvig Sandberg told the Dagens Nyheter daily. [...]

[...] There’s a new urban myth to accompany the return of the city burglar, and it goes like this. A woman is lying in her bed late at night, listening to a burglar going through her house, taking her things. She pretends to be asleep. The burglar comes into her bedroom, and she still pretends to be asleep. When he’s swept up her belongings, and he is heading for the bedroom door, he leans over her bed and says, “I know you’re awake”. End of urban myth. Beginning of calls to locksmiths. And of a lot of stories about houses being robbed. [...]

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A Fresno woman got a huge fright when she almost became a victim to criminals using a baby stroller as bait.

It's a scenario that sounds a lot like an urban legend from a few years ago, but this time, there's a real victim right here in the Valley. It happened on the Herndon frontage road near Harrison in Northwest Fresno.

The unusual crime attempt happened on a street darkened by copper wire theft last weekend. The woman tells Action News she almost became a victim because she thought there might be a baby in the middle of the road. Now, her story has gone viral. [...]

[...] A Facebook post from a local citizen alleging that a uniformed U.S. military soldier had been denied service at a Crawfordsville business prompted outcries from numerous Facebook users -- one of whom went so far as to launch a Facebook page dedicated to getting customers to boycott the business in question. The poster said local law enforcement had been called to the business and that the soldier had been escorted from the premises.

By mid-morning Thursday, it was evident the post was false. Local police checked dispatch records, which revealed no calls for service from the business. No one knew the name of the soldier who had supposedly been denied service. There were no eyewitnesses; all information was at best second- or third-hand.

Threads about the alleged incident continued to pop up throughout the day Thursday, many filled with racial slurs, profanity and accusations of posters being “un-American.” [...]

Hey Fox 59! Last night an american soldier was refused business at the Citgo gas station in downtown Crawfordsville on Washington Steet, and was told to leave the gas station because he was in uniform. The police were called and escorted the soldier off the business. A lot of the citizens in Crawfordsville, as of myself, are very angry about this. The police should be ashamed!! Maybe you guys could go down there and get some more information? Thanks!

Parents kept their kids away from school early this week in the wake of a false, quickly spreading rumor that drug gangs were planning to kidnap students.

The rumor provoked a form of mass hysteria, especially in neighborhoods in the southern part of Guadalajara, where primary school absenteeism peaked at 25 percent on Monday.

The panic began after a rumor spread rapidly that a drug cartel had placed “narcomantas” (public signs) outside schools on January 5 warning that youngsters would be kidnapped or killed unless one of their members was released from police custody. [...]

MacDonagh Junction Shopping Centre has moved to reassure the Kilkenny public that a rumour surrounding the abduction of a child at the shopping centre over the Christmas is entirely untrue.

Donie Butler centre manager at the facility said this week in a statement that an assertion by an anonymous contributor to Facebook in December claiming that a “young person was abducted at the centre” prior to Christmas and “had their head shaved in the public toilets” is both absolutely false and untrue. [...]

A teenager told his girlfriend that they could have unprotected sex as the menthol in the cigarettes he smoked would have killed his sperm. This was just a teenage myth and the 15-year-old girl became pregnant. [...]

KANPUR: Rumours on Monday night that a major earthquake may occur and those sleeping would be transformed into stones, besides several villages in bordering district of Unnao caving in, forced the people to run out on the streets. [...]